Downfall of Society? Ron Powers' article The Apocalypse of Adolescence addresses the concern that America's "ordinary" teenagers and children are becoming desensitized to just about everything. Powers' view on the apocalypse of teenagers and society as a whole could not be more correct. He uses a copious amount of examples to exemplify his concern the desensitization of teenagers.

Ron Powers' article beings with example after example of horrific murders that teenage boys have been responsible for over the past decade. All the boys responsible for these crimes were under the age of 18 and described by their peers and families as "normal" and "ordinary". Another similarity found between these criminals was their lack of motive. None of the boys had what might be considered a real motive were wanting to kill someone. When asked why one boy killed his British foster parent he commented that, "If you had to listen to that British voice you'd want to kill her too," when asked why he did "it."

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The fact that these kids had no qualms about the crimes the committed suggests a their emotional detachment from the world around them. The young boy, Laird, who killed his mother, did not even feel remorseful or saddened at doing so. While he did state, "I love my mother," be showed little emotion in his realization that he had taken away the life of that mother which he loved. The lack of sentiment felt by these murders, discourages any hope of society growing and becoming an all-together better place.

Blaming these crimes on parenting, media/entertainment or the location in which one lives is not logical. Regardless of how ones parents chose to raise their kids it is ultimately the single persons mental stability that will determine how they perceive movies and other forms of entertainment. For a person to take the events of a horror film, and mistake them for real life proves that there is something wrong mentally with these teenagers. While many students may enjoy such horror films, the average kid is going to know the basic differences between good and evil. They will know that in fact when you do kill someone it is not a fanciful thing, and there are consequences. These murderous teenagers did not think this way. This proves that they were not mentality balanced, and while the movies or video game might have tipped them over the edge, per say, they were not to blame for the atrocious crimes that were committed. The crimes cannot blamed on the parents or the cities either, because like stated it is the mental stability of these teenagers that cause them to act out on their graphic fantasies.

While I tend to disagree with Powers' reasoning as to why teenagers are committing such crimes, I do agree with his main point. My generation is defiantly becoming desensitized from such crimes. But it is not only the criminals that this is happening to, it is slowly happening to all teenagers. The contents of Powers' article while stressed as "graphic" and "chilling" by Ms. Dickens, left myself along with my peers, almost not phased at (besides the disgust felt towards the criminals) by the contents of it. This only reinforces Powers' thesis that the younger generation and the newer society has "used to" the graphic and immoral acts described in his article.

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